７月２１日（火）

Now when you travel it's really difficult to stay in-shape, especially if you're used to keeping a consistent routine back at your home. The trip breaks your routine unless you're very persistent about keeping something going. I've been pretty inconsistent on exercise this trip. the travel itself involves a lot of walking, but I don't get any muscle-building work into my schedule. To try to somewhat counteract this I used the following website to design a workout routine for myself that doesn't require any equipment and only minimal space, so I don't have an excuse to slack off.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/finder/lookup/filter/muscle/id/1/muscle/chest

Basically I tried to find at least two exercises for each body part and split it up so I would do about 3 or 4 exercises daily, a couple sets of each. I made each day of the week different to keep it from getting boring. My friend linked me to the site and it was a big help.

For breakfast we went to a bakery in Shinjuku Station. There were no non-smoking seats open so we sat in the smoking room.

An interesting thing about Japan's society is that it's more accommodating to smokers than the US. It's still more socially acceptable to smoke here, and shinkansen and long-distance trains have spaces where people can smoke. I'm a bit worried it will start becoming harder and harder for smokers in Japan, too. But so far, so good.

After breakfast the boys and I took the trains and a bus out to where 京急油壺マリンパーク (Keikyu Aburatsubo Marine Park) is located, we had to take some pictures of the area. On the way Lane tried a Calorie Mate from the konbini. It's just an on-the-run high-calorie food like an energy bar. He didn't like it, it just sort of tastes like dense bread.

the ocean

the countryside

蝶 (chou, butterfly)

We had called the marine park ahead to reserve a place for the 2pm otter feeding. Nick loves otter so much so he was the most excited. The staff talked us through how to get the otters to touch our hand through the feeding tube while we help food out to them, and took pictures for us. Unfortunately the pictures are on Kitty's camera, so I'll have to get them from him before I can post them. Here are some pictures and videos from the aquarium, though.

カワウソタッチ
(kawauso tacchi)
touch the river otters

We all got to participate!

otter

ottttttter

otteeeeeeer

 Swimming otters!

adorable marine park staff explaining feeding to onlookers

penguin

swimming penguins

penguin gang

doesn't care penguin

swimming penguin

eeee the ocean

dolphin friend

... I'm missing something

At the marine park there was an outlook point from which we could see Mt. Fuji! None of us knew or expected that, so we were very happy! Look at the great pictures we got.

so pretty

the oceaaaaaaan!

富士山 (fujisan, Mt. Fuji)!

The boys and Mt. Fuji!

Once we returned from our trip in the evening we did some hanging out together in the common space. Kitty wanted to try a whiskey bar (Zoetrope) he'd heard about to search out a Japanese whiskey as a souvenir for his father. Lane stayed at the hotel, but Kitty, Nick and I went to a curry shop before heading to the bar. Both Kitty and Nick ordered very spicy curry in extra large sizes, and had some trouble finishing all of their food.

Culture note: One difficult thing for Americans in Japan, who are used to leaving food on their plate due to huge portions, is eating all the food at restaurants in Japan. It's a little bit looked down upon to leave food on your plate at a restaurant, so try to order a portion you know you can eat. Leaving food is seen as もったいない (mottainai, wasteful), and Japanese people are a little obsessed with not being wasteful.

On the other hand, at someone's house don't eat everything, they'll keep putting food on your plate and think they didn't feed you enough if you eat it all.

To find the searched around late at night, losing our way trying to find it. We eventually had to go back to the hotel to use the internet and find where we were going again. We found it the second time. The owner/barkeep is hooked on old movies, so he has silent movies playing projected on the wall of his bar while movie soundtrack music plays in the background. It's awesome! The place is small and comfy, although hard to find. You have to go in a very cramped elevator just to get to his business.

Zoetrope's sign

whiskey samples

Miho Brewery's stout. Apparently an award-winning beer but I think the body's a bit thin for my taste

The barkeep was very nice. He helped us by telling us about the whiskeys we thought were best. The very best one we though was called Tsuru, but it was being discontinued and therefore very expensive and hard to find. There were a couple whiskeys from Yamazaki we liked that Kitty thought he might search out. 

Once he heard I'm a beer fanatic he also told me a couple places in Japan I need to try. One in Tokyo called Popeye (wish I had time to go!) and one in Osaka for which he gave me the address.

Popeye

On the way home we found some fun art pieces under the train tracks.

bunnies!

party cat

Travel tips:
16. If you're on an extended trip and want to stay in-shape, try to build a workout routine ahead of time. Don't make it long or complicated because you'll have more trouble motivating yourself to do it regularly than if it's short and sweet.
17. Try to order portions you can finish at a restaurant, so you don't leave food on your plate. Japanese people can be weird about waste.